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The Guardian reviews A Rebel in Gaza, discusses writing and politics in Palestine
“A Rebel in Gaza is a love letter to an unloved place […] a sparkling memoir. […] Asmaa al-Ghoul, who was born in the Rafah refugee camp at the southern end of the Strip, writes with clarity and tenderness of [Gaza’s harsh] realities.” Continue reading
Featured News Items
Niña Weijers makes the list of nominees for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Awards for her debut novel The Consequences: “Intelligently written, full of surprises and with lots of twists. An ode to art. Wonderfully crafted, this debut is full of ideas and has an intelligent story.” Read the full announcement, including all statements from nominating librarians here.
On the centenary anniversary of the Armistice that ended The Great War, Riot Material publishes an excerpt from The Last Days of Mankind – A Visual Guide to Karl Kraus’ Great War Epic, based on Deborah Sengl’s installation of Karl Kraus’ legendary play critiquing the war. With images from the Viennese artist’s exhibition of taxidermied rats, drawings and paintings … Continue reading
The excerpted chapter from A Rebel in Gaza, “The Woman with the Beauty Spot,” is about author Asmaa al-Ghoul’s intriguing encounter with Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Read it online or the November print issue of Harper’s Magazine. Learn more or buy the book.
In a new review on sister-hood, an award-winning digital magazine spotlighting the diverse voices of women of Muslim heritage, human rights lawyer Sayeh Hassan praises Asmaa al-Ghoul’s A Rebel in Gaza: “Refreshing and eye-opening […] This memoir was a page turner, and I appreciated Asmaa’s challenging perspective, her outspokenness and her strength. […] I would recommend this memoir … Continue reading
“As Malva reclaims her father’s pen to tell her story of abandonment, the novel probes the question of how to make sense of Neruda’s political outspokenness in light of his silence on the subject of his own mute daughter, revisiting his poetry to find where Malva might fit among all the omissions.” Continue reading
The Last Days of Mankind – A Visual Guide to Karl Kraus’ Great War Epic is included on Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Art, Architecture & Photography books – Fall 2018 for its “eye-catching” display of over 100 taxidermy rats and colorful sketches to restage Karl Kraus’ seminal (and unperformable) drama about The Great War. See the full list. Learn … Continue reading
“A compelling read, appalling and inspiring, tragic and hopeful. Heda’s voice comes through incredibly strongly and my admiration for her clear headed courage and determination is very deep. Full marks to the interviewer for her part in getting Heda’s testimony on the record. The words and tone of voice do not strike a false note. … Continue reading
“Malva is a hypnotically poetic novel, in Peeters’s original Dutch as much as in the translation by Vivien Glass. The afterlife has granted the disabled eight-year-old Malva Marina a precociously eloquent kind of wisdom and a wicked sense of humor.” Continue reading
Publishers Weekly praises Asmaa al-Ghoul’s new memoir (with co-author Selim Nassib) for scrutinizing the oppressive forces affecting women in Palestinian society: “Debut author Al-Ghoul, a journalist from Rafah, picks apart the paradoxes of being female in Palestine, illustrating in vivid and direct language how Hamas and Fatah, on one hand, and the Israelis, on the other, conspire … Continue reading
We’re pleased to announce that DoppelHouse Press has received a grant from the Graham Foundation for Jacques and Jacqueline Groag, Architect and Designer: Two Hidden Figures of the Viennese Modern Movement by architecture historian Ursula Prokop. Prokop’s meticulous history restores Jacques and Jacqueline Groag to their rightful places in the pantheon of Viennese Modernists. She explores their individual … Continue reading
Tulsa Book Review praises Heda Margolius Kovály’s Hitler, Stalin and I: “Oral interviews can be a gold mine for historians, and this is no exception. It provides individual experiences that get lost in the grand narratives, and it values the stories that people tell about how they lived through momentous events in their lifetimes.” 5 stars … Continue reading
“…complex narratives whose twists, turns and connections are brought to the light of day by a writer engaged in search and discovery.” Continue reading
In Peter Sichrovsky’s short story “New York,” which was recently featured on JewishFiction.net, a Jewish couple living in Brooklyn consider their own survival of the Holocaust as they contemplate whether or not to attend a reception at the Austrian Embassy for the fiftieth anniversary of the end of WWII. Peter Sichrovsky is an Austrian journalist, author, … Continue reading
“Before I was going to meet Charles Paterson—the architect, hotelier, and patron who passed away on Aug. 8 at age 89 in Aspen, Colo.—a mutual friend gave me his autobiography Escape Home: Rebuilding a Life After the Anschluss,” writes Aaron Betsky, President of the School of Architecture at Taliesin in a tribute to Charles Paterson published in ARCHITECT. … Continue reading
“Polishchuk describes much of his life with a chuckle. He says that the book is, in part, meant to convey the absurdity of the Soviet experience.” Continue reading
We are saddened by the recent death of author, architectural designer, and hotelier Charles Paterson, who with his daughter, Carrie Paterson, founded DoppelHouse Press in 2011… Continue reading
In an advance review, Kirkus Reviews commends Palestinian journalist Asmaa al-Ghoul’s new memoir (with co-author Selim Nassib), which relates her experiences growing up and becoming a writer in Gaza: “Fierce and defiant, Al-Ghoul’s book is as much a celebration of Gazan resilience in the face of raging internal and external conflicts as it is of … Continue reading
A new review on The Common by Olga Zilberbourg highlights many feminist themes in The Consequences and the urgency to address issues of gender disparity in the art world: “I found the read to be so exhilarating that as the book drew to its close, it took effort to return to the question about the nature of Minnie Panis’s disappearances. The question: … Continue reading
Some of our favorite pull quotes from this very positive book review in ARTMargins: “Forgács makes a marked effort to describe fine art not only in terms of aesthetic categories, but also on the basis of its political significance.” “Heartily recommended to anyone curious about the history of modernism and avant-garde art in Hungary, … an … Continue reading
Malva, the unknown story of Pablo Neruda’s only child, has recently been reviewed by Kirkus Reviews: “This phantasmagoric novel by the celebrated Dutch poet Peeters (Maturity, 2011, etc.) is a strange experience, poetic in word and verse […] Malva’s voice is intriguing, having evolved beyond revenge or anger into a deeper acceptance. An evocative portrait of a … Continue reading
A feature in JAZZIZ Magazine on celebrated jazz musician Coco Schumann, entitled “Playing Music in Hell,” focuses on his experiences in concentration camps during WWII in a nine-page spread replete with photographs from throughout Coco’s life and excerpts from his memoir The Ghetto Swinger: A Berlin Jazz-Legend Remembers. “For posterity, [Schumann] left behind a lifetime of music … Continue reading
Publishers Weekly takes an in-depth look at the memoir of Russian Jewish dissident and human rights advocate Arkady Polishchuk in a special interview with Howard Lovy: A true story of Cold War bravery and danger … Polishchuk was an prominent Soviet journalist in the 1960s, yet as a Jew he did not fool himself about … Continue reading
Among a list of 20 outstanding translated books, DoppelHouse has two works of fiction recommended to book clubs by Ingram: From Germany: The Abolition of Species has been recommended by Library Journal for readers of Frank Herbert (Dune) and George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones). From the Netherlands: The Consequences has been called “a true must-read.. imagine a work by … Continue reading
“The depressing surroundings of Polishchuk’s life might be hard to believe for a Western person—but it is re-counted with such journalistic vision and style that reading the book is both enlightening and entertaining.” Continue reading
In this video featured on the culture blog Laughing Squid, Coco Schumann is the second guitarist discussed by musician Steve Onotera in his list of guitarists who found musical success despite facing great adversity. You can watch the full episode here and learn more about Coco Schumann’s life and autobiography on our book page.
Thank you, Julie Carbonara of The Jewish Chronicle for an illuminating obituary honoring Coco Schumann on Yom HaShoah: “He insisted he was a musician who survived the concentration camps, not a Holocaust survivor who happened to make music. Indeed for Coco Schumann, who has died aged 93, music, especially his beloved jazz, was as essential as … Continue reading
We’re excited to feature human rights advocate and author of our forthcoming book Dancing on Thin Ice: Travails of a Russian Dissenter (which will be released this July) at the American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans next month, where he’ll be reppin’ DoppelHouse Press with Publisher and Editor in chief, Carrie Paterson! Polishchuk’s … Continue reading
At the peak of his career an elite Russian journalist ceases to write. … But now his situation is worse than ever. The KGB begins using his magazine as a cover for its agents working abroad. … Continue reading
“In Samuel P. Willcocks’s masterful translation, The Abolition of Species is a transgressive revelation, a worthy philosophical successor to Wells’s generative novel [The Time Machine (1895)].” Continue reading
“Hours of film and voice recordings, much of it mould-damaged, believed to cover most of the [Slánský Trial] were found stashed in metal and wooden boxes – along with millions of classified Czechoslovak Communist party documents – in the basement of a bankrupt former metal research business in Panenské Břežany, near Prague.” Continue reading
In his first novel to be translated into English, Dath uses gender and evolution as underpinning motivations, with some interesting results. Continue reading
The spirit of Coco Schumann, who never gave up nor lost his sense of humor despite his experiences, was honored in a manner that he would have enjoyed. Continue reading
We are pleased to share with you our 2018-2019 catalog, downloadable or viewable online here. Cover art: László Fehér (b. 1953), Balcony, 1988. Oil on fiberboard, 250 x 220 cm, Municipal Gallery Kiscell Museum, Budapest. Courtesy László Fehér. From Hungarian Art: Confrontation and Revival in the Modern Movement by Éva Forgács. Design: Janet Le.
Manuscripts, the quarterly journal of The Manuscript Society, writes that this book “fascinates as a case study of a man driven by a lifelong compulsion, a psychological need, to combat oppression…a moving portrait of a compelling figure in a field rarely occupied by noble persons struggling to combat evil and right wrongs.” Continue reading
We must thank journalist and curator David Růžička for mounting and touring the traveling exhibition of Adolf Loos—A Private Portrait with photos by Claire Beck Loos and of the Beck family. Continue reading
An interesting view into the field of investigative journalism as we follow the author’s steps to find more information at the Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris [which] exposes the reluctance of the French police to come to terms with its own past. Continue reading
“Heda’s torturous path through some of the 20th century’s greatest calamities is rendered with deep wisdom and a poetic eye for detail. Her misfortunes, and her perseverance through them, make Hitler, Stalin and I both an important historical account and a testament to human endurance…A Czech writer who survived the Holocaust, Stalinism and exile gives a compact, … Continue reading
The notion that existence is ephemeral, flickering like a light bulb about to burn out, permeates the idea of contemporary culture that the author articulates throughout the novel. Its reach is both broadly horizontal, defining the production of the art world in which Minnie lives and works, and deeply vertical: it touches quotidian life in … Continue reading
This compelling personal and insightful tale of survival brings to light another brilliant and selfless Terezín artist. It is storytelling from the inside by a music-maker who rediscovered the humanizing power of jazz and swing at a time when it was needed most. Continue reading
Unusually interesting amidst the plethora of self-serving musician autobiographies. Schumann has a better story to tell … survival under the hardest conditions, the value of well-placed friends and the vagaries of fortune as well as the impulse to create. Continue reading
Don’t miss Pamela Joseph at Explore Booksellers in Aspen on March 9 from 5:30–6:30pm — “aprés ski”. “Of all the many books that have been published about Iran, none so viscerally conveys the absurdity of the censorship that bears on the nation, or the spirit of rebellion against it as The Artist, the Censor, and … Continue reading
“The Consequences is in part about and part of the art world’s commodification of resistance. But it is also about the relationship of an artist to their art, and of the struggles of artists to represent what is absent. […] That The Consequences is populated by many well known artists and illuminated by the description of their artworks is a beautiful treat for the part of the reader that loves learning about art history.” Continue reading
“It is hard to imagine a reader who would not be inspired by the momentous life of Heda Margolius depicted in Hitler, Stalin and I. [… The book] is at once a harrowing journey, a kaleidoscope of images and sounds. If a reader truly hears the haunting words as if they are spoken one can begin to understand … Continue reading
Thank you, Riot Material, for hosting this excerpt from The Artist, The Censor and The Nude by Glenn Harcourt about some of the remarkable contemporary artists in Iran whose work is informed by the censorship and/or disappearance of the body in public space. Continue reading
Don’t miss our event Sunday Feb 18 with multi-media artist Kurosh ValaNejad, who was recently featured in Kayhan Life for his contributions to the award-winning video game “The Cat and the Coup.” Continue reading
Glenn Harcourt in conversation with multi-media artist Kurosh ValaNejad. Join us on Feb 18 from 2-4pm at A.G. Geiger Fine Art Books, Chung King Ct., Los Angeles. Read more…. Continue reading
“Engrossing, immediate and real. […] I actually read the book in one sitting because I did not feel I could or wanted to stop.” Continue reading
In this moving tribute to Coco Schumann, Rochel Sylvetsky of Israel National News comments on the “impossible position” of Jewish Holocaust survivors in the diaspora in relationship to their homelands. Continue reading
Our DoppelHouse Press family is heartened to see so many touching tributes being paid to Coco Schumann. Smithsonian published a feature on Coco’s extraordinary success under horrific circumstances, noting that he “began his career during a fraught time for German jazz musicians.” Having survived the Nazi concentration camps because of his music, “Schumann returned to … Continue reading
Coco Schumann was born in Berlin on May 14, 1924. Throughout his life, he appeared in some of the best swing bands in Europe and alongside jazz notables … Continue reading
FEATURED BOOK
Visit our online magazine The Nomadic Journal for artist features on Katarina Burin (image below), Alberto Burri, Simon Clark, Miklós Erdély, Roza el-Hassan, Ilya Kabakov, Rona Lee, Charles Long, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, Richard Mosse, Nahum, Adrian Paci, Noah Purifoy, Gregor Schneider, and Liat Yossifor.
Featured works by Paul T. Frankl
